


Morning Rituals

by earlgreywarden



Category: Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Camelot (TV)
Genre: Early Mornings, Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreywarden/pseuds/earlgreywarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gawain likes dawn.  Kay likes the dawn too. </p>
<p>A prompt-inspired ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Rituals

Gawain liked dawn.  He liked that moment when the first ray of light entered his room at the beginning of the day.  He liked how it filtered through the ragged cloths that served as curtains and cast dappled shadows on his bed.  He liked how that first ray of morning looked on Kay's sleeping face.

Kay liked the dawn as well.  He liked waking up warm and secure.  He was glad Gawain had never bothered to improve the curtain situation.  He liked being woken up by the sunlight.

Most of all, he liked the few ritualistic minutes they spent after the dawn broke every morning.  The few minutes where they pretended that they had no duties to perform - no king to serve; no army to train.  He lived for those few precious moments each day where they lay together silent, Gawain absentmindedly stroking his hair as he traced abstract patterns on his lover's abdomen.

Today was no exception, except for how the minutes seemed longer than usual.  Gawain, usually the first to respond to the unending echo of duty, found himself particularly reluctant to leave their bed that morning; while Kay, never willing to be the one to break the spell of morning and force their day to start, lay quietly, idly tracing things with his fingers.

"What are you doing?" Gawain's question was abrupt, his voice cutting through the fog of early morning.

Kay cocked his head slightly from where it rested on Gawain's chest so he could meet the other man's quizzical gaze. "Hm?"  He continued tracing.

Gawain's lips quirked. "You've been repeating the same pattern over and over again for the better half of ten minutes now," he explained. "Is there a message that I'm failing to get that compels you to continue?"

Kay paused mid-loop. "You haven't been studying like you said you would," he smirked.

Gawain groaned and rolled Kay off of him, sitting up.  His glacial progress at learning how to read and write was a perpetual sore spot.  No matter how hard he tried, the scratchings and their purported meaning continued to elude him.  Sometimes he was convinced that Kay was taking him on a merry ride and the "letters" he was being made to learn were actually gibberish.  He rubbed his temples, feeling the echoes of the headache he always got whenever Kay opened a book to begin their so-called lessons.

"It's damned difficult," he grumbled, reaching for his clothes.  "Besides, it's not like you're writing a bunch of letters on paper."  As if that would improve his ability to comprehend.

Kay scrambled out of bed towards the pile of documents in the corner of the room that had slowly accumulated over time when he sometimes brought state documents back to their room to "read in his spare time".  Finding a scrap bit of parchment and an almost-dried out quill, he hurriedly scratched something out in large letters and pushed it into Gawain's hands just as he was buckling on his sword belt.

Gawain stared blankly at the hasty scrawl.  It looked like a bunch of lines interspersed with circles.  Definitely gibberish.

"You _know_ I can't read this." He grunted in frustration.

"Try. Just like we practiced." Kay - optimistic as ever.

Gawain peered closer in the dim light, as though seeing the chickenscratch up close would help matters.  One straight line.  He screwed up his face and tried to remember.

"I."

Kay nodded encouragingly and pointed at the next letter.

Gawain groaned.  Straight line with a horizontal line at the bottom.  The learning headache was back.  It looked like a ladder leading straight up. "Luh," he began hesitantly, sounding it out like Kay had taught him.  _Little circles._ What the hell did little circles mean?  "Luh-suh..."

That made no sense.

"It's no use," he complained, scrunching up the parchment. "I can't read it."

Kay was visibly disappointed but didn't push.  "Maybe try again later.  We can work on letters again at the next lesson," he murmured.

There was the dreaded 'L' word again.  Gawain's head was throbbing by the time he left Kay and headed towards the practice yard.  At least that was something he could knew he could do and it would at least clear the headache that the ordeal of attempting to read had caused.

As he prepared to take on one of the training dummies, he realised he still had parchment wadded up in his fist.  He smoothed it out to look at the incomprehensible of lines and swirls again.

He knitted his brows in concentration, willing the parchment to reveal its secrets to him.  Then it came to him.

_I LOVE YOU._

His headache was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> It didn't end up quite following it, but based on the following prompt: Imagine person A lightly tracing “I love you” over and over again on person B’s back, assuming that person B is asleep. When person A is lying on their back, getting ready to sleep, person B moves closer and wraps their arms around person A, whispering softly, “I love you too.” Bonus if that’s the first time person A has ever declared their love for person B.
> 
> Also, I struggled with a letter/picture association for the letter 'L' - if anyone has something better than 'a ladder', PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave a comment. It's bothering me to pieces.


End file.
